Crosby scores a pair as Penguins hand Red Wings home loss

DETROIT – The Pittsburgh Penguins came in and showed the Detroit Red Wings why they have the top-ranked power play in the National Hockey League, Saturday night at Joe Louis Arena.

The Penguins scored on back-to-back power play chances in the first period as they handed the Wings another loss on home ice, this time 4-1.

Pittsburgh was 2-for-3 on the power play, while the Wings were 0-for-5 on the power play with nearly 12 minutes of man-advantage time.

“Our power play was a passing power play on the perimeter,” Wings coach Mike Babcock said. “We were standing around the outside. They were on the inside and shooting the puck. Both of their goals on the power play were simple chaos. They threw it on in and it bounced around and they got it. We passed it around the outside and killed off the time. So to me that was the biggest difference.”

Sidney Crosby (two goals) and Evgeni Malkin each scored on the power play for the Penguins in the first period, while Olli Maatta added the other goal. Rookie Jeff Zatkoff made 28 saves for his fifth win of the season.

Niklas Kronwall had the lone goal for the Wings and Jonas Gustavsson stopped 21 shots.

“Their big guys were better than our big guys,” Babcock said. “Look at the overall thing, they skated us. They were without their top four D. We can talk about who’s not in our lineup, but they were without their top four D, they played yesterday, came into our building and they left happy. Not good enough.”

Detroit drops to 5-7-6 at home this season.

The Wings also lost Justin Abdelkader to a possible concussion late in the second period.

Detroit was awarded a five-minute power play late in the first period after Deryk Engelland was assessed a five-minute match penalty for a hit to the head of Abdelkader at center ice.

The Wings began the second period with 4:30 work of power play time and their best scoring chance came late by Tomas Tatar, but he was unable to get the puck up and over and outstretched left pad of Zatkoff.

“I thought they got some good breaks there on their power play goals, then we got on our heels a little bit,” Kronwall said. “We had a big opportunity, obviously, being on the power play for five minutes, too much passing around. We've got to find a way to get the puck to the net.

“We'll look at some video and see what we can do better and make sure the puck gets in there, take advantage of these chances. Tonight (if) the power play's clicking, we're winning this game. They're a good team, very talented and there weren't a lot of chances either way. But they really took advantage of theirs.”

Abdelkader never returned.

“It’s a head hit,” Brendan Smith said. “I remember when I got my suspension (in preseason game at Chicago in 2011), I got five games for that. Same outcome. Abby was out, so I’m not sure how they’re going to go about it. If you guys see the replay he obviously did get the head. I know what it feels like because I’ve been in that position. It’s a quick game, things happen. Obviously it’s going to go to (the league) to figure out what’s the right (call).”

It was the first meeting between the teams, which met in back-to-back Stanley Cup finals in 2008 and ’09, in just over two years. The Wings won the last meeting on Dec. 13, 2011, 4-1 at Pittsburgh.

Kronwall opened the scoring six minutes into the game.

Taking a nice pass along the blue line from Abdelkader, Kronwall’s shot took a nice bounce off the ice on a deflection off the stick of Sidney Crosby and skipped over Zatkoff’s left shoulder.

Crosby made up for his mistake with a power play goal three minutes later to tie the game. The league’s leading scorer dragged a loose puck just over the red line and chipped it in over Gustavsson, who was sprawled on the ice.

The Penguins made it 2-for-2 on the power play less than four minutes later.

A pass through the crease by Jussi Jokinen deflected off the inside of Wings defenseman Brian Lashoff’s skate and onto Malkin in the slot and he buried the one-timer.

Maatta made it 3-1 for the Penguins late in the second period, getting one to trickle over the goal line as Crosby forced Drew Miller into the crease.

The Penguins got their third power play of the game less than two minutes into the third period on a very questionable high sticking call on Miller. The replay showed Crosby’s stick clipping his teammate just over his visor.

The man advantage was cut short when Malkin was called for holding.

Malkin was unable to serve the two-minute minor and needed to be helped off the ice after crashing into the end boards behind Zatkoff.

Crosby sealed the win with his second goal of the night with five minutes to play.

NOTES: Stephen Weiss is still waiting to hear the results of his MRI, which are supposed to come Saturday night, but there’s a good chance he’ll need to see a groin specialist according to Wings general manager Ken Holland.

“There’s a chance we might send him in for another opinion,” Holland said. “We’re going to see tonight what Dr. Plagens thinks, but Piet Van Zant thinks the second opinion might be (the right move).

“You’ve got a guy that’s had groin issues 3-4 weeks ago, came back, felt great, now we got groin issues, we got to be sure,” Holland added. “He’s out for sure until after Christmas. Let’s see what Dr. Plagens reads and let’s see where we go.”

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